


Reflecting

by TeamGwenee



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arranged Marriage, Cinderella Elements, F/M, Fluff, Horror Comedy, Reincarnation, mention of suicide, parental neglect, victorian au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:41:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25173286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeamGwenee/pseuds/TeamGwenee
Summary: Brienne Tarth was nine years old when her father, on the wishes of her new step-mother, sent her away to the desolate and decaying Winterfell Institute for Young Ladies. Nine years later, and she has been called home to marry a complete stranger. On her final night, Brienne partakes in a childish ritual that has consequences she cannot begin to imagine.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 20
Kudos: 172





	1. Chapter 1

“What about that man in the corner? The one with the pimples? Petyr I heard him called, Petyr Pimple.”

“Shut up Kingslayer!”

“No, that wasn’t your betrothed’s name, was it? Now maybe it’s the handsome gentlemen at the cards table. The one with the fine red beard, with the chicken grease dripping onto his shirt.”

“It won’t be him.”

“No, he has a rather savage look about him. Your Gentleman is of the Westerlands.”

“He is not my Gentlemen,” Brienne snapped, turning around awkwardly in her swaying skirts. The crinoline was not so uncomfortable once she had gotten used to it, the cage at the very least keeping her legs free to move. Her corset on the other hand, was murder.

She glowered in the shining silver of the nearest mirror. There, as was to be expected, the Kingslayer’s handsome, obnoxious face smirked up at her.

“Are you not to be wed?” he taunted. “And stop talking to me, everyone will think you are insane.”

Brienne snorted. “Isn’t that your intent? To haunt me into insanity?”

“Nothing so easy,” the Kinglayers said apologetically, “You’re stuck with me until the end of your life, death ‘til us part and all that. Any insanity is merely a byproduct.” 

Brienne glared and turned away from the mirror, watching the dancers with barely feigned interest. She could hear the scornful murmurs of fine ladies glittering in their jewels, the disdainful titterings of debutantes in white lace, and the vulgar jests of society’s finest gentlemen.

On the other side of the ballroom, her step-mother watched her with barely concealed disdain and loathing. 

It was a crush of deceit and scheming and gross indulgence, and it turned Brienne’s compressed stomach.

“Although,” the Kingslayer said thoughtfully, “Can you really blame me for the madness? After all, in this society, everyone is a little bit mad. Now what about that man just coming in? The ‘distinguished’ chap with the grey ear hair and the walking stick.”

Brienne sighed and tried once more to ignore the spectre who had attached herself to her soul. To some, the ghost of the Kingslayer brought great dread and great terror. To Brienne, he brought great irritation.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exploring a different characterisation of Selwyn, inspired by the fact he seems to have allowed Septa Roelle to abuse Brienne for a long time.

Everyone at the Winterfell Institute for Young Ladies knew the legend of the Grey Lady. 

Winterfell Castle was a half-decayed castle, grey and mournful in the frigid Northern air. It overlooked miles of woodland, legions of pine trees thrusting like daggers into the sky. Its days of magnificence and power under the rule of the ancient and noble Starks was long gone. The Last Stark had died one hundred and eight years past, childless and steeped in debt.

The redoubtable Lady Arya Stark had turned her mausoleum of a home into a school for girls, with the intent of filling it's halls with high spirited chatter. Tender-hearted beneath a fearsome demeanour, she was never one to turn away a lost soul in need and she ended up taking more students than she and her skeleton staff could teach. 

No fine Seminary for prodigies and lady of class, but beloved by its students all the same, Winterfell in those years became a home for the lost and loveless, and Arya Stark died old and content.

Since her death, Winterfell, passed from the hands of the Starks, first to the Boltons, then to the Cassels, then to the Pooles, and finally the Snows. But throughout it all, it remained a school. The merriness it had known under Arya Stark flickered and waned like a dying candle in the winter gales, and where lonely wanderers had once found a safe destination, the unwanted daughters lived a life of drudgery. 

There was never enough coal. Blankets were scarce. Food grim and uninspired. It had known some relief after the brutal Mr Ramsay Snow, who had come into ownership of Winterfell through marriage, had died in a hunting accident. But his widowed wife, though young in years, had been so destroyed in spirit that she had the weariness of one entering her eightieth year, and concerned herself little with the welfare of her girls. She might perchance listen to a request or complaint, and express some vague desire to help, but then she would be lost in some far land, her brown eyes wandering over the days where she was young and marriage and life and love seemed such grand adventures. 

None could blame the poor lady for the unhappy state of her soul. Mr Snow was despised by all those who knew him. Brutal, violent and sadistic in punishing his students, it became a school legend that his wrathful ghost; too wicked for heaven  _ and _ hell, would come be summoned by students wandering the corridors after night’s out. A new girl would be welcome by being locked outside the dormitory and left to spend the night in a pitiful state of wretchnedness and fear. If they made it until midnight without begging to be let back in, their courage would be proven and they would be allowed to return to their bed. The slightest whimper condemned them to a night spent sleeping on the concrete floor.

“First,” the girls would be told, “You will hear the sound of his boots thundering down the hallway.”

Mr Bolton was just one the spectral figures. Starved girls left to languish in ancient castles on the edge of a wood were certain to create their own excitement. And nothing brought a thrill like a ghost story. 

The Grey Lady had once been the beautiful elder sister of Arya Stark. The Lady Sansa. She had been the eldest of the five Stark children, and was the pride of her house. Elegant, mannered and charming. Even back then, the Starks were struggling for money, and their place in society was declining. Sansa was a romantic girl, and an ambitious girl, and neither her romantic soul or her ambitions would settle for anything less than marrying a prince.

She too had been sent away to school, albeit a far more comfortable one in the Reach, where the classes were small and cosy, roses bloomed in vases, the girls dressed for dinner. Living amongst her competitors for the ultimate prize, she knew that her charm and beauty would not be enough to counter her pitiful dowry. 

The game she and the other school girls played was one of many of its kind. A ritual involved in all girls sat cross legged in a circle, a mirror in the centre, and a candle before each girl. 

Sansa’s candle was the only one left burning, and the next morning the news came that all her family but one, her little sister, had died in a tragic fire. Sansa inherited Winterfell and all its wealth. But she did not marry her prince. A year after that fateful night, she wrote a letter apologising for what she had done, and threw herself off the highest tower. 

To see her spectral figure, mournful and grey, drifting about the grounds in the early morning midst, was a sure sign. A sign that the Kingslayer was near.

~

Kingslayer was a popular game, beloved by children all over the realm. The Kingslayer had once been a handsome knight in the service of the legendary Kingsguard, until one day, he sought to usurp his king and take his place on the throne. He stabbed the helpless, elderly old man in the back, and sat upon the Iron Throne, watching with laughter as the feeble king bled out at his feet. 

The Kingslayer was executed for his vile treason, but his father was a fierce and powerful lord, and brought a great vengeance down upon the murderers of his son. 

The game required the circle of players to wait until the first toll of midnight, chanting his name on each chime. It was said that the Kingslayer would then select one player to appear before. All the other candles would be blown out, and the chosen player would see the Kingslayer’s face in the mirror, and hear his voice in their ear.

He would give you a choice. Fire, blood, or gold. You could destroy your enemies, have vengeance on your tormentors, or great wealth that would be the envy of the world.

But whatever you chose, the Kingslayer would be certain to take something in turn. 

“He always pays his debts,” Daenerys concluded in a low, solemn voice.

A couple of the sillier girls shrieked and burst into nervous giggles. 

“Are we really going to play this?” sensible Jeyne Heddle asked dubiously.

“The Grey Lady has been calling, we have all heard her,” Dany insisted. “We have to play.”

And once the Head Girl had decided the girls were playing, the girls were playing. The Targaryens had once been a powerful and wealthy family, but investments and scandals in the last fifty years had seen them lose their place in society. Despite her family’s shame; or perhaps because of it, Daenerys held a certain fascination over the girls. Beautiful, delicate and wraithlike, and yet with a core of steel and a lust for the gruesome that kept the other girls enchanted, she was the school leader.

Brienne Tarth had arrived at the school expecting to be loathed and despised, mocked for her ungainly appearance as she had been at home. Although she was not spared the traditional hazing, her skill at games, and the fact she was strong enough to go out of school ground with an axe and return with an armful of firewood, meant that in her final year she had earned a good degree of respect.  _ She  _ could have chosen not to play without fear of retribution, but beneath her sombre and staid demeanour she had a taste for excitement as much as the next girl.

Brienne had been undesirable not due to a lack of funds, but simply because she was a plain and homely girl, and larger than the average boy her age. Her father was a vastly wealthy man. The Tarth family had been of minor importance for years until he had made his fortune during Brienne’s early years, after the death of his wife. Believing his little daughter needed a mother, he used his newfound wealth to procure a wife. Roelle was ambitious and determined to climb into the upper echelons of society, and saw immediately that a child like Brienne was only going to be hindrance to the Tarth’s glorious ascent. She prevailed upon Selwyn to send his daughter away to make room for prettier, more beneficial children. Brienne had two half sisters, and at the age of eighteen, had met neither of them. Indeed, she could barely remember her father’s face. 

As grim as Winterfell was, it had been her home since she was nine, and she feared a future beyond its walls as much as she longed for it. 

To play this silly children’s game one last time, where fear came from ghosts and spirits and not from distant fathers and hateful step-mothers, was a release from the letter her father had sent this morning. She had yet to tell the other girls, unable to face their misplaced congratulations. 

“We’re playing,” she said sternly. “I can think of a wish or two.”   
  


Dany shivered theatrically in the night air. “I know what I am wishing for if I get picked,” she announced, “I long for a fire.” 

~

The flames blew out between the second and third chime. Only a single candle remained lit. Brienne’s.

In the darkness, she could make out not a single movement from the other girls. The gale outside their window was still, the trees had ceased to sway in the wind. Brienne’s skin was all over in goosebumps. The world was well and truly frozen.

“Dany?” Brienne asked tentatively. “Jeyne?”

“Brienne?” a voice said. 

A man’s voice.

Terror stole sense and sound Brienne and she was rendered still and silent. She could hear breathing from corner behind her, the sound of a person rising, and footsteps drawing close. A hand, almost tender, rested upon her shoulder. 

“Brienne,” he said once more, his mouth hovering by her ear and sending hot air down her neck. 

Brienne gave her head the tiniest, slightest shake. “This isn’t real,” she muttered foolishly.

Brienne heard a small snort of amusement. “Look into the mirror,” the voice said.

Brienne paused, praying for the world to re-awake, for life to return to the Earth. The figure waited, feeding off her terror. Her movement stiff as a puppet, Brienne leaned forward to look in the mirror. There, hovering over her shoulder, was the cameo of a handsome face, jaw chiselled, lips curled in bitter mirth.

The Kingslayer. 

“Why me?” she whispered.

“I sensed your soul was the most desperate,” the Kingslayer taunted. “And your eyes are so very pretty in the candlelight. In the darkness, you can be the prettiest girl in the room. Now, I think you have a choice to make.”

“A choice to make?” Brienne repeated. 

“Fire, blood, or gold.” His smile grew. “I can burn away that wretched suitor who your family has foisted onto you. I can make your loving father and gentle step-mother bleed for the unkindnesses they have dealt you. I can fill your pockets with such wealth that you could travel the Seven Kingdoms, the East and the South in luxury. You can see the wonders of the world. You can taste freedom.”

Freedom. Brienne savoured the word.

She remembered how her father hugged her goodbye the day she went away to school, and never visited and rarely sent her a letter since. He was a weak man, but a loving one. It was Brienne’s misfortune that he decided to love her step-mother. She didn’t want him hurt. Not so greatly as the Kingslayer would see to. She did not want her faceless siblings injured for their parents’ sins. She did not want them on her conscience. She did not want to be another Grey Lady.

“No,” she hissed. 

He hovered beside her, thoughtful in his silence.

“You have to pick,” he drawled. “Don’t leave me here waiting. I cannot leave until you make a choice, and the third stroke of midnight is nearly upon us. You don’t want to be stuck with me, do you?” 

Brienne squared her shoulders and clenched her jaw. “I will not choose.”

The Kingslayer removed his hand from her shoulder, taking all the warmth in the world with him. 

“So be it.”

Air rushed to Brienne’s lungs as the wind swirled around her and the girls broke out into hysterical shrieks and giggles, clutching each other in a giddying hurly-burly of terrified delight.

“It’s Brienne!” Dany cried, laughter in her voice. “What did you ask Brienne?”

Brienne stared silently at the mirror, her hunched shoulders and pensive gaze sending unease throughout the dormitory. After a good minute of waiting, a couple of the girls giggled uncertainly, hoping Brienne was just teasing.

Dany nudged Brienne’s knee with her foot. “Go on,” she pushed, “what did you ask for?”

Brienne kept her gaze on the mirror, where the Kingslayer’s handsome face continued to beam up at her. “Go on,” he said, “Tell them what you asked for.”

  
“Nothing,” Brienne said. “I asked for nothing.”    



	3. Chapter 3

The day after Brienne’s first ball, Brienne had hoped to rid herself off the tedium and humiliation of the night before with a good, long gallop. She changed into her old, patched riding habit, and snuck away early to the stables.

It was with some surprise she found her father there, evidently arisen even earlier than her, for he himself had just arrived back from a ride, slick faced and red from the wind.

“Ah, Brienne,” he said, his spirits unusually high from his ride. “Here for a ride?”

Brienne nodded, tongue tied as usual in her father’s presence. She never knew what to say to this near stranger. It was easy to hate Roelle, she never missed an opportunity to spite Brienne and was only a step-mother beside. Her sisters she has settled on loving out of duty, and despising out of good judgement. Her father could be so pleasant, so almost loving, yet he left alone all those long years, and never sought her out now she was home at long last. She wanted to love him and she wanted to loathe him. 

When she arrived home to begin preparing for her wedding, she had longed for a warm welcome. She had hoped her father would show regret for all those years she had lived on the sidelines of his life, would bestow upon her the love and comfort she sorely needed. Now more than ever, with a vengeful spirit haunting her in every mirror.

Or rather, a persistently irritating and annoying spirit. 

She could faintly see the Kingslayer intently watching her from the shining silver of the handle on the stable door, absorbed in this private moment between father and daughter.

“Excited for the wedding?” Selwyn asked jovially.

“Hmmm,” Brienne said noncommittally, searching his face for a sign of... _anything_. 

“Well don’t wear yourself out,” Selwyn instructed. “I believe Lady Cersei will be calling later to take you and your mother shopping for your trosseau.”

“Oh what joys,” the Kingslayer said sarcastically. “I am sure you will be the belle of King’s Landing.”

“Husband!” a shrill voice cried out. 

Selwyn rolled his eyes and winked fondly at Brienne with a conspiratorial air, a cruel echo of what should have been present nine years ago, before striding off with nary a word more to the the daughter he had barely spoken to since she was nine. 

  
  


~

“I think you should stick with the blue silk.”

Brienne stubbornly kept her gaze fixed on the YiTi painted screen before her, tracing her eyes along the butterflies and cherry blossoms.

“Your eyes looked pretty in the blue silk. You look like a ham in this.”

The wretched thing was that Brienne couldn’t disagree. She spied a quick glance at herself in the mirror and shuddered.

“Is this really necessary?” she inquired, sounding more whining than she would have liked.

“Really child!” Roelle snapped. “Your father is so good to provide your trousseau, and all you can do is complain.”

“The Lannisters are a proud and ancient house,” Cersei said pleasantly. “Its new lady must be attired appropriately.”

Brienne spotted the pleased smirk on her future sister-in-law’s face as she stood beside her, comparing their reflection in the mirror. Lady Cersei Lannister was beautiful, proud, spoiled, and vicious. Lord Jaime had not turned up at the ball last night, but Cersei had made herself known to her and Brienne knew that if her betrothed was anything like her brother, she was in for a very unhappy marriage indeed. She had remarked on Brienne’s height, her breeding, and her shyness, all in a thin veneer of civility. 

Brienne thought of poor Mrs Snow, and felt as thought someone had just walked over her grave.

“It is for the best that your betrothed did not come in the end,” Roelle has said peevishly. “No doubt if he sees you before your wedding he will call the whole thing off, whatever the price of your dowry. The Lannisters may be desperate to save Casterly Rock, but very few men are that desperate. 

Brienne scowled at the memory, holding back her tears as she thought of how her father only squirmed uncomfortably in his carriage seat, saying nothing in his prodigal daughter’s defence. 

“Did that wretched school teach you no manners?” Roelle demanded, loud in her orange striped afternoon suit and heavily feathered bonnet. 

“The school you sent her to you old trout,” the Kingslayer said cuttingly, oddly irate at Roelle’s manner. Brienne had been bemused by the Kingslayer’s ardent dislike for her family. Her father’s negligence, her step-mother’s cruelty, her younger siblings’ disdain. 

She was his to torment, Brienne reasoned. His, and no one else’s. Brienne wondered if he was indignant that his jibes did not hurt her more. There was nowhere in her flesh that his barbs could slice that was not already cut to the bone. 

“You think she would be grateful for a silk dress or two,” Alysanne whispered to Arianne with a smirk. “After what she came home wearing.”

"I think the sight of luxury must be frightening for her, "Arianne whispered back, her nasal voice carrying throughout the room. "But then, she isn't one worth dressing. You can see why was left in a school unform all these years."

The Kingslayer’s face grew almost thunderous. He raised a fist and bang harshly on the mirror, the force causing the vase on the table by the twins’ chaise lounge topple and spill, spoiling their smart walking dresses with water. The girls sprang to their feet, shrieking at the water marks on their costly gowns. Roelle rushed over, cooing and despairing at the price of their dresses.

Lady Cersei rolled her eyes at their ill bred display of temper and raised a disdainful eyebrow at the dressmaker, who continued to pink Brienne into the leg-of-ham ball gown. 

“You would think they’d show more compassion for the sister who was deprived of their luxury by their own mother,” the Kingslayer spat. “Nasty, vindictive little bitches.”

  
Brienne started at the sudden cursing, the dressmaker accidentally jabbing her with her pin. Blood blossomed, utterly spoiling the dainty silk.

“Well, you cannot have that pink dress now!” Roelle snapped. “Look at the mess you have made of it.”

Brienne caught another peak at the Kingslayer, to see him smiling once more.

“Well?” he asked, very much the lion who had got the cream, “Aren’t you going to thank me?” 


	4. Chapter 4

“Father,” Brienne began tentatively, her tongue thick and awkward in her mouth. “I was, I was hoping to speak with you.”

Mr Tarth put down his morning newspaper with an apprehensive air. He knew he had not done right by his eldest daughter. He had cowed to his wife’s wishes to send her away, reasoning that once they had a child of their own it would make no difference bringing Brienne back. But the twins came and Brienne still languished in the North, and the longer she had been away, the easier it was for Selwyn to forget about her existence. Remembering, remembering was too shameful.

But then his wife had discovered that the Duke of the Westerlands had been searching for a wealthy bride, and suddenly remembered Brienne was of marrying age.

“It will be such a good thing for her!” Roelle enthused. “She will be one of the highest ladies in the realm. And think of what it will do for the twins’ prospects when their time comes.”

Making his daughter a duchess seemed an effective way of making up to her all those years of loneliness. And yet, he rather gathered Brienne was less than enthused about the match.

“Father, I want to talk to you about my wedding,” Brienne said, stumbling over the words to get them out. She had little time before Roelle joined them.

Selwyn sighed. “That’s women’s business,” he said stiffly. “Perhaps you had better take it up with your mother.”

“Step-mother,” the Kingslayer corrected, almost petulant as heglowered up at Selwyn from the ornate mirror on the wall. A ghastly, gothic thing, chosen by Roelle. 

“She does not listen to me,” Brienne pleaded, “And you are my father. You have the final word. I don’t want this marriage. I do not want to live my life with that cruel, arrogant family.”

Selwyn tried to look firm. “You know your mother and I have always tried to do our best for you.”

Brienne did not hear the Kingslayer’s snort of contempt over the sharp scrape of her chair against the wood. “That is a lie,” she said harshly. “How is abandoning me in the North for nine years your best?”

“How dare you speak to your father like that?” Brienne turned to see Roelle standing in the doorway, quivering in her be-ribboned cap and morning dress. “After all we have done for you, arranging this splendid match for you, making you a Duchess.”

“Have I ever asked to be a Duchess?” Brienne hissed. “All I wanted was to have a home, with my father. But you cast me out at the age of nine, and drag me back when I am of use to you.”

She turned back to Selwyn. “What did I do?” she asked in a broken whisper. “How did I lose all your love so swiftly? I asked myself that question for years and years, every night when I lay huddled under those thin sheets, wanting to be back in your arms. What did I do wrong?”

Selwyn, so controlled and measured, found his eyes growing moist. “Nothing,” he said softly. “You did nothing.”

Brienne nodded in agreement. “And neither did you. You did  _ nothing. _ ” She turned to include her infuriated step-mother in her gaze. “You have done nothing for me, and I will pay you in like. I will not marry Jame Lannister, I will not become a Duchess, and I will not help your wretched daughters find unfortunate husbands. From now on, we are as strangers.”

The Kingslayer thumped ferociously upon the silver platter, as though in applause.

  
“Do you deny your duty to us?” Roelle shrieked.

“What duty?” Brienne asked incredulously. 

“The duty of family!”

“The same duty you showed me?” Brienne said scornfully. “You and I at least are not bound in blood, for which I am glad, and we are certainly not bound in love.”

“Brienne,” Selwyn began mournfully, but was unable to find the rest of the words.

Brienne looked at her father with regret. Things could have been different between them. There had been potential, once. She shook her head.

“I have to go,” she said softly. “I cannot stay.”

“Where will you go?” Sewlyn asked, holding up a hand to hush his fuming wife.

“Back to Winterfell,” Brienne said. “For a while at least. I will offer myself as a teacher.”

Brienne was suddenly overcome with a desire to see that damp, crumbling castle again, with all those familiar faces. She could see Jeyne and Dany and all the rest once more, and tell them how she exchanged being a Duchess for a school teacher.

“You?” Roelle sniffed. “A, slow, dim witted girl like, a teacher?”

Brienne ignored her stepmother. “If you will be so good to provide a coach fare for me North sir,” she told her father. “I will be very grateful. I will ask nothing of you after that.”

“You will always have whatever you want of me,” Selwyn said earnestly, causing the Kingslayer to snort in disgust. “I will always be there for you.”

“Just as you were nine years ago?” the Kingslayer sneered.

“All I want is the fare,” Brienne reiterated mildly. She would not get her hopes up for the father who had proved himself so hopeless. 

“Let’s talk this over,” Selwyn cajoled. “You need not be so hasty. Mistakes were made, I admit that. We will talk to the Duke of the Westerlands and put this marriage business to rest for now-”

“The fare, sir,” Brienne said, her blue eyes kept firmly on him.

“I don’t want you out there, alone,” Selwyn told her.

“Oh but sir,” Brienne said under her breath, her eyes flickering to the mirror on the wall. “I will never be alone.”

~

“Brava Brienne,” the Kingslayer cried as Brienne peeked a long at the mirror in her small compact. “I am proud of you. Truly proud of you. But I must ask, what made you finally act?”

Brienne smiled, lowering her voice so as not to be heard by the other passengers. 

“It rather has something to do with the fact there is the ghost of a vengeful spirit in every mirror that I pass, who frightens me less than my family does, and cares for me a great deal more.”

The Kingslayer’s face turned almost sad. “Alas, the ghost in the mirror will not be present much longer.”

Brienne’s heart lurched as the carriage hit a bump in the road.

“What?” she asked helplessly. “But you said your spirit will remain with me until I die. ‘Til death do us part, you said?”

The Kingslayer smiled reassuringly. “And I will,” he assured her. “But it is time that I joined you in a different form. You may be surprised how. Fate has a strange way of handling these things.”

“I don’t understand,” Brienne said, suddenly so tired.

“Rest,” the Kingslayer told her firmly. “You will understand soon.”

~

Brienne awoke as the carriage shuddered to a stop. Outside, a cruel gale was blowing, and she distantly heard the ring of some far off bell tower chiming midnight.

“What is it?” she asked her neighbour, peering at her through bleary eyes. “Are we at the inn yet?”

“Not yet,” the portly, pleasant matron squeezed in next to her said. “Still about half an hour ‘til we get there. Some poor Gentleman’s horse has thrown a shoe.”

The carriage door opened and the wind blew violently into the small carriage, before being shut out roughly once more. In a handsome man clambered, settling in opposite Brienne, his face half concealed in his sodden woollen greatcoat.

“Damned vile weather out there,” he swore in a voice that sent a jolt down Brienne’s back. “Blasted nuisance.”

He folded down his collar, revealing his face. His jaw, those eyes, that mouth, smiling ruefully as the cramped carriage started to life.

“Kingslayer?” Brienne asked, wide eyed.

The gentleman quirked an eyebrow. “Dear me,” he said, “Even still, that ancestor of mine continues to haunt me. No, good lady, I have Lord Jaime Lannister of Casterly Rock.”

Jaime...Jaime Lannister. Her betrothed? The man she was travelling North to flee. 

“The Kingslayer, the Kingslayer was a Lannister?” she asked.

Lord Jaime settled comfortably in his seat, dashing and elegant even when wedged into the corner of the carriage.

  
“The shame and pride of our house,” he drawled. “You should read some history on the subject. Fascinating man. Far more sympathetic than all those ghost stories make out. Still, I would be glad to escape the man now and then.”   
  


“Oh I am sure,” Brienne agreed with an astonished laugh. “But tell me sir, were you not meant to be married?”

Lord Jaime’s face fell into a handsome, brooding scowl. “It seems I cannot escape from that either,” he muttered. “In truth, I am fleeing the match. Or rather, the matchmaker. My beloved father had the marriage contract drawn up before even consulting me. As it happens, not long ago I received a letter from my little brother, who had left the family years ago to try his hand at starting a vineyard on the Arbour. It has done very well, and he has offered me a partnership. I am travelling to the Arbor this very moment.”

“Via the Riverlands?” Brienne asked doubtfully.

Lord Jaime shrugged. “I will catch a ship from White Harbour. I hope taking the longer route will shake my father off my tail.” He looked grimly around the carriage, filled with so many sharpened ears. “Which I have succeeded in greatly so far,” he noted bitterly. 

“You can be assured of my silence my lord,” Brienne promised him. “I am in a rather similar situation myself, and can sympathise entirely.”

“Are you?” Lord Jaime asked. “And I had been wondering why a young lady was travelling all this way. If that is true, we shall have to be of use to each other. Perhaps I can offer you a role in my brother’s vineyard? If you can read, write, pick….I’m sure something can be found for you.”

Brienne’s smile widened, the promise of a brand new horizon so delicious. “I think I shall have to take you up on that offer, my lord.”

“Good,” Lord Jaime said in satisfaction. “Family disgraces should band together. It is funny we should find each other like this.”

“Not so much,” Brienne mused. “Fate does have a strange way of handling these things.”


End file.
